I returned my Surface Pro

I was a launch day Surface Pro customer. I sat in line with a smile on my face, eager to take home a piece of hardware that I knew, from prior experience, that I was really going to enjoy. Yesterday I returned my Surface Pro, and I am unlikely to purchase another piece of hardware directly from Microsoft ever again.

Like most people excited by a new piece of high-end hardware, I made sure everyone in my immediate circle spent time with it. My friends and family know that I’m the go-to guy for new tech, and so it is a ritual I’ve grown accustomed to. I setup an account for my roommate so he could try the Pro and, like myself, he found both the handwriting recognition and the overall feel of the tablet to be excellent. As people noted after handing the Surface Pro back to me, aspects of the computer are very good and it has features that many of us have been waiting for.

I purchased a Surface Pro because it was exactly what I wanted when I travel. As a writer for Geek.com I travel to events often, and having a highly mobile piece of hardware that is light and durable means a great deal to me, especially after my MacBook Air was accidentally smashed to pieces on a flight home two years ago.

My Surface Pro was imperfect. I noticed recently that sometimes the keyboard cover would be attached but not recognized by the PC. Despite disconnecting and reconnecting, hearing that satisfying click as the magnets come together and the plastic nubs found their way into the guide slots, I remained unable to type. The same keyboard worked just fine on the Surface RT I have in the office, so I knew my Surface Pro was at fault. As you can probably imagine, being able to type is pretty important to me.

After some time in the forums, I realized that this was a problem that warranted a trip to the Microsoft store, where the $99 Apple Care-esque warranty I paid for could be put to use. As a worst case scenario, they would just replace the unit with a new Surface Pro, since I knew the tablet PC wasn’t exactly easy to repair. I also wanted was to make sure the problem I was experiencing wouldn’t result in me needing another new Surface Pro after a month, and based on my research it seemed like this incident was fairly isolated.

At the same time, and after a weekend of using my Surface Pro my roommate decided he needed one of his own. Unfortunately, Microsoft was taking their sweet time getting 128GB Surface Pro units back in stock in our area. We were both told repeatedly that it was possible to order one and have it set aside when the store received stock. It wasn’t something that appealed to either of us, so every once in a while one of us would call and see if any had arrived at the store. This continued for about a week and a half, until a cheerful Microsoft rep was all too happy to announce that the store in the mall near us finally had them in stock. When we got off work, I called again just to make sure that my roommate’s prize and my replacement Surface Pro would be waiting. Again, I was told to expect plenty of them.

The closest Microsoft store to me is a 30 minute drive. It’s not a proper Microsoft location, but a pop-up kiosk. The closest actual Microsoft store is over an hour away, but the kiosk I went to was always well trafficked and generated what I considered to be a reasonable number of sales. Every time I went to the location one of the Surface-powered cash registers was in use servicing a line of customers.

My roommate and I arrived at the mall to discover that the kiosk, its employees, and any trace of a Microsoft logo were completely gone. There was just an empty space in between the Lord & Taylor and the cupcake shack under the escalator, where only a week before there was a crowded area filled with touch screens and identically dressed Microsoft employees. I asked the woman in charge of the register at the cupcake shack, and indeed the store had been removed a couple of days ago.

I called the number that I had already called twice that day. After a few minutes of being on hold, a different perky young woman answered the phone. Like the others before her, she confirmed that the now removed Microsoft store had many 128 GB Surface Pro models to sell or exchange, and that I should go right now to claim one. I hung up, half in shock as it finally dawned on me that there would be no Surface Pro for my roommate or I that evening. I called back, and an entirely different person answered the phone with the same energetic demeanor. I explained that I had been told, several times, to expect that my local Microsoft store would have the product I was looking for in stock, but the store was missing. It was at this point that I was told my store was one of four locations that were permanently shut down, and the three previous employees that I had spoken to just hadn’t gotten the memo yet.

The woman on the phone was unable to explain why I had been repeatedly misled, or why the Microsoft website still had that location listed as an active store. She tried to re-direct me to the next closest location, only to discover that it had also just been closed this week. The next closest Microsoft store was now over an hour away, and it would be closed by the time I arrived. I asked the woman, who was very clearly trying to make the best out of a bad situation, if I had to go all the way to the Microsoft store if I wanted to return my Surface. She explained that there had been new policies issued allowing her to facilitate a return over the phone for those who purchased a Surface at one of the stores that had closed. I sat in the middle of a crowded mall, in the middle of what used to be a Microsoft kiosk, and processed the return of my Surface Pro over the phone.

Returning my Surface Pro was an effortless experience. My information was all on file. Today I will use the return label that sits in my Inbox in order to send the hardware to a distribution facility. At some point over the next 14 days I will have the money returned, and this experiment will come to a whimpering close.

When I hung up the phone, I found myself right around the corner from an Apple Store. My new daily driver is a 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro.